


If The Sun May Rise

by MabelOverture



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Braime - Freeform, F/M, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers, The Battle for Winterfell, Violence, but ignored in classic braime fashion, feelings are involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-10 06:23:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18654736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MabelOverture/pseuds/MabelOverture
Summary: The Battle for Winterfell tests the limits of both Brienne and Jaime, and it’s aftermath may force them to confront feelings they’ve long kept hidden. Spoilers for Season 8 Episode 3 are within this fic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One more chapter will follow.
> 
> I wish we saw more of these two in the battle, though what they did give us was still fantastic. They were inseparable, beside each other nearly every time we saw them. Here's a fic of how the battle may have gone for our favorite pining power couple. This was one of those fics that came easily to me, the writing flowing without difficulty. I began writing this to overcome a panic attack, and it certainly did the trick. Bless these two for being such a distraction for me. I hope you enjoy it!

"Jaime…" she began as he took his place beside her. On her face was open concern, she knew, but a concern wrought with expectation, intensity. She'd only said his name and nothing more, yet he'd known what she meant all the same.

"I want to be here," he assured her with just as much vigor, his fingers dancing around the hilt of Widow's Wail. "This is where I belong. By your side."

Her throat tightened at his words, at how his green eyes stared into her blue ones. His brow was furrowed. His words were honest. His fingers danced.

He was a man of one hand. It made her worry. In fact, the way it perturbed her was nearly downright distracting. Something deep inside her wanted to openly shout at him, scream at him that his presence wasn't necessary, that he shouldn't be here, that he should wait inside the gates and be safe, that his trepidation for his life was outmatched by her own.

But then, she thought, the gates within may not be safe by the time the night is through.

Yet they had to be. The men behind her, soldiers whose faces she'd never seen, and will never remember, will die to ensure the walls behind her remained free of blood. Perhaps she would be one of the faces left to be forgotten. Perhaps Jaime's would be too.

Gods, she wanted him to go inside.

She nodded at him, accepting his place beside her as though everything that had run through her mind was fodder.

By the time the dead had come, the faces of those soldiers behind her faded from her mind. The thought of them was replaced by the slaughtering winds of corpses jumping at her, clawing at her, scratching at her arms and pinning her back to the shrieking bodies of their comrades. The notion of the heroics of those soldiers was drowned in the mouths of decaying skulls, suffocated by the sounds of screaming men and howling death. Brienne was overcome with battle, hypnotized by the fight to not simply remain alive, but remain human. She certainly did not feel human. She felt less, she felt primitive, she felt she was nothing more than her own horror, petrification, instinct. A jackal in the jaws of a panther. Fear, and fight. Nothing more.

But she kept thinking of him. The thought of him cut through her devolution, reminded her that there was something beyond her seemingly unending life of swing, cut, scream, kick, flail, whip. Please be fighting, she prayed as the same undead man came for her. She swung up Oathkeeper and plunged it through his jaw. He collapsed. Then he came again from her left, from her right, in droves. Oathkeeper slashed through his chest here, his neck there. He fell. He fell. He came. Unending did he, Death, Darkness, come for her. And all she could think is please be fighting.

The dead were an ocean, and she was merely a rock in the tidepool that was being shaved down, cut away and eroded by their unending, ruthless wave of decimation.

That dead man grabbed her left arm and wretched it away from Oathkeeper so the sword was held by only her right. The dead took that too, and the sword fell from her fingertips. She did not hear it collide with the dirt. Her screams were the only thing that filled her ears.

Her back was on the ground. The sky was filled with their faces, ugly, chipped, and made of nightmares. One of them drove its dagger into her side, splitting between two of her ribs and sending a bolt of agony to the space between her ears. She'd never been stabbed before. The pain was far more electrifying than she ever could have realized.

The dagger slipped into her flesh again, like a sword into a sheath, and her screams fell empty. All she could do was force out a shallow breath, her mouth open in a silent cry of pain, as she realized the end had come. A warmth spread so wide across her body she wondered if it was the pain rather than the blood, coating her in a blanket of shock. Still, she struggled against the wights, her powerful arms thrashing against their hold, but their number was too many and her strength was not enough. The dagger came back for a third strike.

The sky turned grey as the overcast clouds came into sight. One, then two of the wights disappeared from above her. Jaime Lannister's arm lifted and struck down the one who had Brienne's blood on its skeletal hands. Even more of the sky rained down on her, the illumination of the moon through the clouds lighting the profile of Jaime's dirtied hair.

She gasped as he turned and gripped the lapel of her armor.

"Get up!" he screamed down at her, fear wild in his eyes. "Brienne, you must get up, now!"

The legs beneath her scattered to stand, and the pull Jaime gave to her armor helped her to rise. How he was alive, she couldn't be sure. If it was even him, she doubted for a fleeting moment. His face was covered in blood, his armor black with whatever the undead's skin was made of. But his eyes, the eyes that searched around them both for attackers and then whipped back to look at her. Those eyes she knew.

They began fighting without another word, their shoulders touching at every moment, back to back and face to face with the undead man. Sometimes she would purposefully push back into him, just enough to feel his body against hers, just enough to ensure the pressure at her back was still Jaime Lannister standing tall. He would return the nudge by pressing into her. She felt his shoulders move as he swung his sword, and she felt her own jolt into him as she fought.

It was as though she'd never been wounded at all. It had happened to someone else, some other time. It left her mind like the faces of the men that were nowhere to be seen, gone, lost, dead.

The night was long. She'd only ever known this life. Fighting for her life, fearing for his, seeing darkness' profile illuminated by the flickering flames of fires somewhere around them. This was what she was born into. Any memory she'd ever had was this. This was all. This was her life. It never stopped. It never ended.

She thrust her sword into the belly of a wight, and her knees hit the ground as the unexpected momentum of the movement propelled her forward. At the tip of Oathkeeper was nothing, for the undead man had fallen backwards, untouched by her blade or anyone else's. The duplicates of that undead man, all the same, born of the same mold, fell too.

Fog thrust out of her open mouth as she breathed, heaving for breath that didn't seem to fill her. The dead stayed dead. They did not rise as they had what seemed to be a lifetime before.

She stayed on her knees for what seemed to be ages, her arms quivering with exhaustion. She waited for them to get up. She waited for them to claw at her once more. Her mind buzzed like a hive against a threat, chaotic and wild. But still, they remained limp.

It was Jaime who broke the spell.

"We won…" His voice was a whisper on the wind.

The moment she'd realized that he was right was the moment her body began to sink into intoxication. She'd only been drunk a number of times before, but she remembered how it felt. Limbs heavy, mind blanketed with wax. Then, it had felt fine, good even. Now, it felt wrong. As though it shouldn't be how her body felt, that the amount of concentration it took to lift Oathkeeper to its scabbard shouldn't have been so monumental.

Is this dying, she wondered as the light inside her body began to flicker.

She groaned, but what came out of her mouth was more of a whimper as she placed a hand to her side. She didn't know why she'd done it until the bite of hotness pricked at her palm. Blood was there, fresh and human. Hers.

She'd been wounded some time ago. She'd forgotten.

She lifted her head to search for Jaime, but her vision blurred at the movement. Yet still, his face came into focus as it fell in front of her.

"Brienne!" he shouted. "Brienne, stay awake!"

A pressure was placed on either shoulder. He gave her a shake. Perhaps he said something more, but all she could do was keep her attention on was his face, his eyes. After all the blue she'd seen, his green was a relief that inebriated her. Blinking slowly, as though to shy away the blackness at the corner of her sight, she thought of how glad she was to be looking at him. To see him before the darkness overwhelmed her.

She began to fall, but Jaime caught her. His lips were saying the words no, no, no, but his voice was mute to her. His hand was at the back of her neck, holding her there. It felt comfortable and warm, kinder to her than how the wound at her side felt.

She wanted to rest more than she'd ever known before. The need was stifling.

The dead were defeated. The night was through. Jaime Lannister lived, and behind his face, filled with fear, was the break of dawn. He glowed.

It was the last thing she saw before succumbing.


	2. It May, After All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not perfect, but still such a joy to write. I haven't been so fervent about writing in awhile, so this obsession is a breath of fresh air. I may write another chapter depending on reception and if the creativeness is sparked, but for now, let's say this is a good place to wrap up! Let's hope we get a ship-full of Braime this Sunday.
> 
> I genuinely hope you enjoy this chapter! I certainly indulged myself when writing it. This kind of stuff is my weakness, what can I say.

She rose to consciousness quickly, like a tree's limb thrown into water. Eyes opened to see Jaime above her, his head turned to the side with a fierce, committed look about him. He was staring off somewhere, spectating something, maybe waiting for something. She would have thought him distressed, but the fierceness in his features made her doubt it.  _Alive_ , she landed on suddenly, desiring to shout it in relief. She couldn't recall why he shouldn't be alive, but something told her that it was a gift all the same. Not yet lucid, Brienne wondered what the pressure was at her side.

Jaime adjusted his kneeling position, and the pressure turned to pain. A sharp exhale whistled out from her throat at the feeling and Jaime's eyes whipped down to look at her, wide as the moon, a combination of devastatingly tired and shockingly awake. She realized then that Jaime's hands were on her belly, pressing down as if to push her into the ground. The tension in his shoulders dropped as his eyes found hers, and Brienne thought the vulnerability in his face wasn't something he'd meant to show.

"Oh, good..." he said on the breath of a sigh. "You're still here."

The sea of bodies, the tumultuous waves of death, the blood, screams, manifestation of all seven hells...it came back to her in an instant. A great battle, and an even greater nightmare. Something heavy anchored itself in the center of her chest as she recalled it.

Her eyes sluggishly roamed about them as the consequences of such a battle became apparent to her. They seemed to be within the walls of Winterfell, with men and women mulling about, some running, some dragging; they either very dearly had a place to be or they were too lost to bother. They hugged, or collapsed to their knees in relief. No screams but for the sounds of the many injured, whose cries came from a place she didn't see. Perhaps they were in a corner too, just like she and Jaime were. Perhaps outside the walls of Winterfell were the dead, and inside were the dying. Yet still...

"We won…" she hummed quietly. His face twisted in a sad smile.

"We did."

"Podrick?" It was a whisper. Quiet was her voice, though she didn't know if it was because she feared the loudness of the answer, or because of the heaviness in her bones. The more time spent awake gave way to the absolute weakness she felt. A sort of spent she'd never experienced before, where the whole need to rest filled every corner of her skeleton. The thought that her squire was dead, and that she had failed him, made her wish to give in to the sleep that so desired her company.

"Alive," he responded. Her absolute relief paled her pain, if only for a moment.

"The Stark girls?"

The split flesh at her side ached once more. Jaime swallowed and the muscles around his jaw clenched.

"I don't know."

Brienne made to move at that, determined to find the answer for herself, but she could barely do more than raise her torso a few inches before falling back down with a cry.

"Brienne, please," he admonished, "you must be still!" He pushed back on her shoulder gently to further his indication. "You're near dead as it is."

"How long has it been?" she asked hoarsely. She hadn't the energy to expand the question, but she needn't have done it anyway.

"I'd say around two hours, but my perception of time is not particularly reliable at the moment." He rose his head to the sky and studied its blossoming pinks. They lined his profile gracefully, painting colors on him that did not belong on the face of someone so bruised and bloodied as he. "The dawn is growing."

"Where…" she breathed. "Where is...anybody…"

"I've seen that wildling fellow and Podrick, and no one more that we know. Brienne," he moved closer to her, but she moved nearer to exhaustion, finding herself sinking into a dark place. "Don't worry yourself with what's happening. Concentrate on staying awake. I don't want to see those eyes close, do you understand?"

Even as he'd said it, her eyelids had begun to drift downwards.

" _Brienne._ " The shake he gave her was not gentle, and her eyes snapped back open.

"Your wounds will heal, don't succumb to them yet."

"They feel as though they will not..." she countered sulkily.

"You've lost more blood than you could have spared," he explained with a flick of his eyes to his hands, which she then looked to as well. The golden tint she expected to see was entirely gone. A matte layer of red had replaced it, splatters of blood rising past the wrist. "But once we staunch the bleeding, you'll be alright. You will be."

They needed help, she realized then. Jaime needed it, because he burdened himself with her dying form. The aftermath of the battle was too chaotic, too many bodies were piled around them, too many men and women cried in the distance from their own wounds. Too much blood, far more than just hers, had been spilt. She mattered to no one in particular, for anyone who would care had cares of their own.

No one except Jaime, who'd carried her in from beyond the walls and into the keep of Winterfell. And the armor, she thought as she felt his hands pressing against her, the armor he'd gifted her, was gone.

"How did you…" she managed as she looked down at her body, covered now in her leather jerkin and britches. The fact she did not realize this immediately was a worry.

"Not easy with one hand," he smirked. "But too heavy if I was going to bring you within these walls."

"Are you hurt…?" she asked softly. Why he'd done this, how he mustered the strength, she wouldn't ever know. He shook his head.

"Not like you are."

"Thank you Jaime...for fighting with us..."

" _Brienne!"_  he scolded loudly, shaking her again. She snapped open eyes she hadn't realized she'd closed. "Don't do that!"

"Jaime, it's fine...," she muttered into the air, her eyelids fluttering for a moment before closing once more. She wondered if he could hear her. Gods, she was tired. Beyond the tired of what any human ought to feel. Rest beckoned to her like an old, familiar friend, inviting her to stay someplace warm and free of her pain.

"Absolutely not," his voice said, and two strong hands pushed hard into her bleeding side. The torment cut through the fatigue and she groaned loudly, turning her head to the side in pain.

" _Open them,_ " he demanded, and pressed into her again. She nearly gasped and whipped her eyes open again, staring at him with a look of betrayal. In her desire to be at peace, it seemed as though he was were robbing her. She felt the accusation in her gaze, but the apology in his sobered her immediately.

"I'm sorry, Brienne," the sharpness in his voice had gone entirely. "But you won't be dying tonight."

"Where is she?" a different voice shouted in the distance. Jaime's head snapped up, looking off at something she couldn't see. She heard the voice again.

"Where is she?"

" _Here!"_  Jaime yelled swiftly, his breath white against the cold. "We're here!" He lifted one of his pressing hands to wave in the air. Suddenly a large man, the one who'd taken the black with Jon Snow, was standing above them. He dropped to one knee, his face close enough for her to see the blood covering it. Did she look like that? The way Jaime and Samwell Tarly did? Masked with bits of flesh, gobs of fresh gut, and iced blood crusted to skin? She wondered what the fight was for Samwell, what he'd seen. Perhaps it was much of the same as hers.

"Show me," Samwell said. Jaime removed his other hand from Brienne's body, and the warmth of his touch was replaced by the unforgiving air of a night past sleep.

"She's been bleeding out for hours," Jaime said quickly, as though he were convincing the boy of their predicament. Samwell nodded.

"Can you lift her?"

"Yes."

"Follow me."

Samwell rose again and took off out of sight. Jaime's nostrils flared as he put his arms under Brienne's neck and legs.

"Let it be known I will never carry you like this again," he uttered in jest as he lifted her off the ground, his thighs strong beneath them as they rose into the air. Brienne could have been shocked. It was no secret that she was not a small woman, for the entire world could see her size, and not only this, but they'd both come fresh from an entire night's battle. Jaime should have barely been able to stand by himself. His arms should have been shaking from overuse.

It was not the first time Jaime Lannister had surprised Brienne, and she knew, or at least hoped, it would not be the last.

Being in his arms was somehow an even more exhausting endeavor, and she did not have the strength to hold her head up. As he lifted her upwards, her head rolled back against his forearm. The wind was colder than it was before, biting into her cheeks and freezing the blood on her stomach. It felt as though an ice pack was placed there, chilling her, teasing her. The aches in her body only amplified when she hoped they would be quelled by the unforgiving air.

Samwell led them to a nearby room, where he told Jaime to lay her on the table. Goblets and books cluttered to the ground as the boy shoved them off the wooden surface.

"I'll return shortly, take off her jerkin, and quickly," he said before dashing out the door.

Jaime's fingers found their way to the strings at her neck, ripping them out with absolute speed. It must have been difficult with only one hand, but Jaime made no appearance that it was. He'd barely removed the strings before Samwell returned with impressive speed, carrying a tattered basket made of weave.

"What cut her?" asked Samwell as he pulled open her shirt. Brienne felt the thick suction of blood protest against the removal of the leather, and something wet billowed down her side and under her back.

"I didn't see," Jaime said. "The wight held a weapon, I don't know what."

"All the same," Samwell muttered as he rummaged through the basket. Brienne had never bared herself to anyone before, yet her lack of embarrassment was no astonishment to her. She was too tired to care, too frail to pay any mind.

Of course, perhaps part of the blame for this could be due to the fact that she had actually been bared to a man before. And he was standing over her, his eyes glued to the hands of Samwell Tarly as they wiped puddles of blood off her stomach, and he was only one of two men she'd ever trusted besides her own father.

Brienne suddenly gasped loudly, and then she screamed. Something cold, colder than the air or the night or the bloody damned deepest trenches of the ocean, washed over her belly and infiltrated the tissues of her open flesh in an unrelenting ambush of agony. Jaime placed a hand on her shoulder, desperate to comfort her despite knowing he was unable to.

Samwell wiped away the alcohol with a cloth, massaged the skin around her wounds to flush out the drainage, then lifted the ewer again so the freezing fire poured over her once more. She didn't recognize when she'd stopped screaming, only that she heard nothing in her ears but a ringing that she knew didn't exist. Panting, her eyes clenched shut and her cheek turned to the table, Brienne felt sweat forming on her brow. Jaime asked her weakly if she was alright, but she hadn't the strength to reply.

"She's bleeding too much…" Samwell muttered.

"What the hell does that mean?" Jaime demanded hotly, the wobble in his voice gone. Brienne blinked open her eyes to see Samwell raise a red hand assuringly.

"It only means she's bleeding too much, and I've got to stop it. I'm going to put this powder," he grabbed a jar filled half with yellow dust, "in both these wounds, and you're going to pack it as I do so. Do you understand?"

Jaime nodded, and Samwell did as he said he would.

The pain was nearly as unspeakable as the disinfectant, but Brienne's throat prevented her from screaming any longer. Any screaming to be had existed within her, and silent to the two men in the room.

"Still with us?" Samwell asked calmly, as though he was unaware of what his own medicinal concoctions would do. Brienne thought she may die from the pain alone, but managed to groan instead as a reply. She'd noticed Samwell's chest heaving in small, rapid breaths, but his steady hands and confident voice betrayed nothing. She wanted to wonder what the battle had done to him, but the agony was far more desperate for her attention.

"That's not an answer, my lady," he said as he continued to drop powder over her stomach and Jaime continued to grind it into her flesh. Brienne groaned again, a cry of pain forced between her clenched teeth. No matter what was rolling through the boy's head, damn him all the same.

"Yes," she bit out, her voice sounding as though it had been scratched by the claws of an animal.

"She's a knight."

Brienne forced open her eyes again and stared at Jaime, who returned the look. Something passed between them, and a breath became stuck in her throat.

"Is she?" asked Samwell. Yellow dust floated through the air as his fingers continued to plunge into the jar to fling out fistfuls of powder. Jaime broke their gaze to address the boy.

"She is."

"Well then, Ser Brienne," the jar made a  _clunk_  as it was set down on the table. He sprinkled the last of the powder over her belly and took a step back. "Stay with us awhile longer. I'll return soon."

He made to leave the chamber, but Jaime's good hand, now looking like it had been stuck in a riverbed of gratuitously colored clay, grabbed him.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"Keep an eye on the wounds, see if they'll continue to bleed. I'll be back."

Jaime's fingers tightened as his eyes widened in disbelief, daring him to leave. Sensing his distress, Samwell turned fully towards him and offered him a sympathetic, knowing smile.

"Ser Jaime, after packing the wound, I must wait at least five minutes before sewing it to prevent bleeding beneath the skin. Other soldiers are dying out there, and I need to find the next most critically wounded person to save. Brienne is not the only important person to somebody, you know. There are other loved ones who may still die."

Jaime stared at him a moment, then peeled his fingers from his arm. Samwell nodded.

"I'll be back, Ser Jaime. Ser Brienne. I swear it."

"What if she begins to bleed again?" Jaime asked tersely.

"You have the powder right there." Samwell nodded towards the yellow dust as he walked briskly to the door. "Do as you've been doing." The door opened, revealing a sliver of purple dawn to cascade across the floor, before it closed again and left them in the semi-darkness.

Brienne heard Jaime sigh to himself and she watched his eyes roam over her wounds.

"Well?" she asked. His eyes flicked up to hers, then back to the site.

"Well what?"

"Is the powder turning red?"

Jaime watched the wounds intensely for a few moments, daring them to do something.

"So far, no."

Brienne nodded to herself, then allowed her eyes to close for a moment so she could ground herself and gain some control over the throbbing pain at her side.

"Brienne, what did I say about-"

"I'm awake, Jaime," she assured him. "You can trust me on that." This was no fable, for the absolute torture she'd just endured at the hands of Samwell Tarly made sure of it.

Jaime sighed again.

"Would you stop it?" she said.

"Stop what?"

"Sighing."

"...Pardon?"

"Stop sighing, you'll become grey by the time the sun is in the sky if you don't." The sentence had drained her of breath, but she was glad to have said it all the same.

To her surprise, Jaime chuckled. Brienne convinced herself to peek at him, mildly interested at how she wished to see a smile on his lips.

"Perhaps you'll live after all," Jaime offered, a smirk on his face as he watched the door Samwell had left from. "Or perhaps you'll remain a smartass until your last moment on Earth."

"The latter, I assume," she provided on the tail end of a pant. Sweat was running down her face, warm on her brow and frigid as it reached her hairline. Still reeling from the maester's effort to staunch her bleeding, Brienne closed her eyes again. The muscles in her body shook, quivering over her bones and making the skin atop them dance.

"Having as much fun as you hoped you would?" Jaime joked softly. Brienne shook her head to herself, eyes still shut.

"How do you have the stamina...to always tease?" she asked seriously. His boots scraped across the floor as his stance shifted.

"I don't know," he admitted honestly. She'd expected him to continue his rouse, but the answer was far more genuine. "I suppose I want to mask my worry for you."

For an unnamed reason, Brienne thought he'd said something private. Something near a secret that he gifted telling her. Her eyes opened to meet his.

"I'll be alright Jaime-"

"You weren't," he interrupted, his demeanor a stark contrast to the jesting one it was before. "You weren't. Still, you face danger, but before? Brienne," he moved closer to her. "I did think I carried a dead woman in my arms."

She hardly remembered more than feeling the weight of the realms lift from her body at seeing the wights' demise, but she knew she'd lost consciousness shortly after. Taken aback by his sudden honesty, Brienne did not know what to say in return. And what he had done for her was insurmountable, completely out of the realm of possibilities in what she could do to repay him.

"I owe you a debt…" she began, unintentionally echoing what he'd said to her years ago.

"No, I owed you one. I still do. For what you did for me in the Dragon Pit."

Brienne felt her heart thudding in her chest in a frightening way, and she attributed it to her weakened state.

"You reminded me of what I always thought I was supposed to be," he continued. "You realize that, don't you? What I always wanted to be but never could be - you've always been that. Naturally."

Her bones vibrated with the rhythm of her beating heart. Something tightened in her chest at the way his eyes were locked onto hers, never faltering. His voice turned quiet, fervent, heated.

"You're the best of me." His hand covered hers, limp on the table. It was rough with the texture of the powder and blood, and it was heavy on her skin. "I can never repay you for that."

She swallowed thickly as she searched for a way to respond.

"I brought you here…" she tried apologetically, holding back her very real tribulations with the fact. Jaime's body was broken by battle because of her. Hadn't she thought of that those weeks ago when she stopped him from following Cersei? Hadn't she considered that he may die if he came north?

"Yes." Jaime's thumb slipped under her palm to hold her. "You did. I wish I could take credit for the pride I feel in knowing I helped to protect the realm, because I do feel that. I know sacrifices were made to defeat this army, but millions of lives have been saved in the process. And I can't be responsible for what I did last night. I didn't fight because of my innate goodness, Brienne. I fought because of you."

His hand left hers, and hesitated a moment before brushing a yellow strand of sweaty hair out from her eyes. It was such an innocent gesture, but his touch send tendrils of shock down to her toes. They'd never been this close, they'd never touched one another before in such an intimate way. Brienne was gripped by their proximity, and though she couldn't ignore the pulsating pain emanating from her injuries, she easily overlooked them as Jaime's skin continued to brush hers. His eyes didn't meet hers, and he seemed to wrestle with himself as his fingers continued to stroke the hair off to the side.

"You don't deserve this pain," he said finally. It felt right for her to lift her hand and place it over the back of his, leading it away from her hair. Her other hand rose to encompass his between both her left and right, and she held it tightly. Doing it required more courage from her than a fight ever could, because the fight came to her naturally. Holding Jaime Lannister, however, was a far more petrifying endeavor.

"We did this together, Jaime," she said, putting as much honesty into the words as she could. "We fought together. Nobody made you do it, I didn't make you do it. You just did."

"I wouldn't have if it weren't for you."

"And I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you."

She noticed the presence of Jaime's hand between hers, but neither of them moved to end it. The wind tired of the silence and howled outside the worn door.

Jaime's eyes glanced at her lips. The air between them was unmistakable, yet still Brienne forced herself to doubt it. What she was feeling was one-sided and misplaced. The tension between their bodies was a figment of her delirium. The way he looked at her was nothing to note, nothing to breath even harder at. His hand twitched in hers. His lips parted for a moment, as if he made to say something.

The door swung open and they both immediately dropped their hands to their respective sides, with Jaime taking an involuntary step back away from the table. The cuts on Samwell's face and neck glimmered as he hurried himself into the room.

"Tell me, Ser Jaime, has the bleeding stopped?"

Jaime inhaled sharply and glanced at Brienne's side. It seemed that the both of them had forgotten about the wounds, if for a moment.

"That powder has stayed true," Jaime said. "She hasn't bled."

"Good," Samwell smiled. He was spent, but seemed genuinely pleased at the news. "I can stitch both sites, then. I'm afraid it won't be very comfortable, my lady."

Jaime moved to correct him, but Brienne moved her fingers over the table to motion for him to let it go. Jaime looked down at her, and that same something passed between them. It left her breathless for a moment, but then he wrapped his fingers between hers and she began to doubt the thought that the static between them was imaginary. He squeezed her hand, an encouragement of strength. Brienne closed her tired eyes, and opened them with a smile to the boy.

"Don't worry, Samwell," she said. "I think I've felt worse."

Samwell chuckled and nodded his head.

Yes, she thought. She had felt worse. Far, far worse, because frankly, at that moment with Jaime beside her, she didn't feel so horrible after all. Through the pain, the tug of flesh as a thick needle was passed through it over and over, Jaime stood beside her with his hand over hers. And in contrast to how she had felt the night prior, indeed only hours ago as she was drowning in the sea of the undead, Brienne now felt that the sun may rise after all.


End file.
